provided you forego the benefits. It IS hypocritical to become the thing that one denounces, what she describes as a parasite. It would have been noble for her to refuse to take any benefits beyond what she was forced to pay into the system (plus interest). But she didn't. She played along like everyone else and became one of the things she railed against, without publicly changing her position, and even trying to hide her identity as noted on another post here.

The sad thing is, she was given an opportunity to see that sometimes people need help, but rather than admit her ideas were in any way wrong, she stubbornly refused to recant and drew on public assistance in secret. I believe her published ideas are toxic and she should have at least moderated her position.

Fox News and the Republican leadership (but I repeat myself) have figured out that Sarah's negatives are too high for her to win a general, although she might win the primary. So we might be witnessing a concerted effort to "take her out" before primary season; to discredit or embarrass her now before she becomes an albatross on their chances in 2012.

We've seen Judith Miller involved in planting stories at the New York Times for the benefit of the Republicans. It doesn't seem too far fetched to suspect that this is another; she'd just need an insider to post the video, and she does the rest.

You're "frightened" by what your conservative friends might say? You're "scared" of mean people in the media? Get a grip, man!

Voters will think we are power-hungry far lefts.

Not like those unselfish heroes McConnell and Boehner.

Do we really want to be beholden to a group headed by a gay man (obviously a far left) who is crazy enough to say that the media is not Liberal?

What does being gay have to do with anything? And the media are corporate, not liberal. They are not our friends.

We are better off trying to secure donations from patriotic foreign and transnational corporations- at least they will let us be the pragmaitc centrists & conservatives that we MUST BE without complaining about it all the time.

That has to be the worst advice I've heard in a long time. For one thing, that opens us up to the charge of foreign influence over our elections. For another, it's unnecessary. There are sufficient donors here at home who will respect us if we stay true to our principles.

it's either to make whatever proposal Obama has in mind look good by comparison, or to generate outrage and opposition to what the Republicans have long been advocating. If it's the latter, he's succeeded. We're damned near 100% against this non-proposal, and we seldom have that kind of agreement. Any Dems supporting this have to know they're DOA next election.

Why he didn't put liberals on the commission in the first place, I have no idea. I'd guess it's so they don't have to own these ideas.

I think the commission won't be able to reach agreement on a final report, and will have to disband without one. Simpson and Bowles probably knew this and thought releasing their recommendations would be the only way to get their ideas out in public. The good news here is the galvanized opposition to these ideas.

or will be when there is a bigger market there for our exports. This doesn't help our outsourcing problem, but it is an opportunity for growth in an economy that could use it. Perhaps if their economy diversifies a little, their standard of living will rise and they won't be such a drain on our employment. There's a correction going on here with labor costs bottoming out, but with jobs like manufacturing beginning to return (which is partly in response to higher shipping costs).

I think the days of the Indian call center are numbered because of customer complaints. It's profitable, but horrible PR. There are other sectors of our economy that are not practical to be outsourced. Those are where we need to focus our attention, because cheap labor abroad is too enticing for outsourcing to go away anytime soon. It should, but I don't know how to make it happen.

They would counter, as O'Reilly did on Maher, that our side is advocating "wealth redistribution." Maher's point that it's patriotic to pay to support your country was an effective counter, and would make a good slogan. Both these guys are good at framing.

or whatever our stereotype du jour is. That hate prevents them from seeing any merit in our arguments, and sometimes even from listening. As soon as you identify as a Democrat, anything else you say is assumed to be a lie.

I hate what the religious right has done to the country, but I see their rank-and-file as simply ignorant pawns. The leadership has entrenched the ignorance with propaganda masquerading as news and social pressures keeping people in churches where political opinions are treated as gospel.

At some point, both sides have to turn the hate down a notch, to at least consider the other's point of view. Otherwise politics becomes like the tides: any gains are temporary and erased soon afterwards, and we never get anywhere.

R for reverse. That's what the logo is about. The keychain idea didn't make sense without the new logo, but now it does.

And frankly, I never much liked the donkey.

The new site needs some fine tuning. I see calls to action but not yet a reason to act. They need some motivational aspect, whether it's hope or fear; but the basic framework is fine.http://www.democrats.org

This presser is a withering blow to the forces of fear, ignorance and hate. The right can't refute his last point, and he seems to have stolen the mantle of military righteousness from the party that had claimed it for so long (but was so unworthy of it), while neutralizing the expected race/religion-based attacks.

Who's gonna debate this guy? As long as they allow two-minute responses, he's unbeatable.

This will raise his own poll numbers and boost our side's enthusiasm (while dampening theirs), which can only help Democrats in November.

What about the Muslims who worked in the WTC and died in the attacks? Don't their families deserve a place to pay their respects and work for healing?

"We can have a great debate about the legal arguments. But it's not about that." Of course not, Tim, because you'll LOSE.

Republicans attacked Obama when they said he wasn't supporting the Constitution. Now they're attacking him for supporting it. Repeal the 14th Amendment? Modify the First? They only love the Constitution when it suits their purposes. What they really love more than the Constitution is fear, division and hate. Scapegoating minorities is they only way they can feel superior.

Democrats MUST go on the attack: Republicans hate freedom of religion! They hate the Constitution so much they want to rewrite it! They're as un-American as they come!

Obama has said he wanted to assemble teams of rivals, like what Lincoln did.

It's one thing to have a panel of like minds generating homogeneous ideas. It's another to have a diverse panel hearing concerns from all corners and arriving at a more durable solution, one that will have taken into consideration the most likely criticisms.

The part about raising taxes on people earning under $200K? Oh wait, I found something like that on Breitbart, about cigarettes. That's all you got? Really?

Personally, I enjoyed my payroll tax cut that Obama gave me last year, and I hope you did too. I know I went out and spent it, as did millions of others, which is one reason why business is picking up. You see, when you lower taxes on low wage earners, it's much more stimulative than tax cuts for the rich, who simply put it in the bank (or if they create any jobs, create them in foreign cheap-labor countries).

I realize Obama's payroll tax cut was only temporary, just as you should realize the Bush tax cuts for the rich were only temporary, with a built-in sunset provision because we never could afford them.

I think you're unpatriotic for not wanting to pay your taxes and support your nation. That's how you support the troops, too.

When businesses pay fewer taxes, they have more money to spend on growing their businesses which raises revenue to the govt.

That's the trickle-down theory the Republicans have been trying to sell for decades. We cut taxes on the rich at the start of Bush's first term, and it didn't work.

Taxes are revenue. If businesses pay fewer taxes, that means less revenue. When you cut taxes, you cut revenue. Common sense.

Virtually every economics Ph.D. who has worked in a prominent role in the Bush Administration acknowledges that the tax cuts enacted during the past six years have not paid for themselves--and were never intended to.http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...

This record suggests two conclusions. One is that there's no evidence to support the argument from congressional Republicans that tax cuts offer a silver bullet for expanding employment. Job growth boomed after Reagan cut taxes, but expanded even faster after Clinton raised them, and then faltered despite two massive tax cuts under Bush. If tax rates are the critical factor in that record, the relationship is well disguised.http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/...

The source I used for the cost of the Bush tax cuts was Citizens for Tax Justice:

The tax legislation enacted under President George W. Bush from 2001 through 2006 will cost $2.48 trillion over the 2001-2010 period. This includes the revenue loss of $2.11 trillion that results directly from the Bush tax cuts as well as the $379 billion in additional interest payments on the national debt that we must make since the tax cuts were deficit-financed.http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/stu...

Oh, and I posted the jobs chart earlier not to imply causation, but just to rub your Bush-loving nose in it.

Arizona just handed us a winning issue in November. The "Papers, Please" law is the height of government intrusion into people's daily lives. It institutes a police state, the polar opposite of small or limited government.

This law cannot be implemented without bringing up the issue of race — a losing proposition, since it contradicts the principle of equal protection, to say nothing of being damned annoying. There are murmurings of having to apply this law to *all* persons in order to avoid lawsuits over racial profiling. I hope so; any implementation of this law will either involve harassing a lot of innocent people, or racial profiling. Profiling will cause the law to be struck down in the courts; disturbing average citizens will make the law so unpopular across the board that it will eventually be repealed, and Republicans will be the ones to blame. So either way, Republicans lose; they're damned if they do ask white people for their papers, and damned if they don't.

This law is indefensible. No one can both support this law and advocate a smaller government without doing ridiculous mental gymnastics. But Republican leadership never admits a mistake, so they will dig in and try to defend it anyway, despite the obvious contortions — a recipe for disaster. Moderate Republicans and Independents will have to break ranks and oppose it, or else admit that they are not motivated by their philosophy but by racism. As support for the law erodes, so will support for the party trying to defend it.

Reid will have to present our alternative earlier than we had planned, but almost any proposal we put forward will look golden next to this. We need to keep pointing out that Democrats defend and value individual liberty — like the right to be secure in our persons — while Republicans insist on intrusive government.

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